Georg flamed someone's artistic judgement as demonstrated in their work
and as a consequence has trepidations about having his own "work" flamed
in judgement? Far be it from me. My judgement is limited and personal. I
have no universal and validating criteria to uphold. I'm an unrepentant
relativist and pluralist. I do like, somewhat, the critical style of the
instructor who layed-off the negativity when self-confidence was shown (if
that was indeed the case). Georg (almost) seems confident in his choice.
That trepidation, however, might undermine his own position a tad. (But only
"MIGHT" mind you.)

It would be almost ideal if we could match the student to the professor.
If we could, such confrontations might be avoided entirely. Well, ALMOST
entirely--matches are never ALWAYS perfect. (The alternate ideal is the
procrustean one where all students conform to the professor who conforms
to all other professors and they to the established IDEAL. All we would
have to do to achieve this would be to get the professors to agree,
perfectly, on the ideal they would establish.)

I think Georg's approach is probably as good as any but not recommended
for everyone. Now, if I believed George to be another Hamada and that Hamada-
like quality of his was my absolute benchmark I could not think of anyone
else I would want to teach me; no matter how stringent thier critiques.
On the other hand, if I wanted to "do my own thing" I would probably look
elsewhere.

> >>From gheimdal-state.edu Mon Sep 30 09:39:12 1996> >Date: Mon, 30 Sep 1996 09:36:27 -0400> >From: Georg Heimdal <gheimdal-state.edu>> >Subject: Bad Critique> >To: Barrett <barrett.8>> >MIME-version: 1.0> >> > A friend and colleague with whom I have been sharing the critique> discussion wrote the following to me, and with chagrin and trepidation for> fear of being flamed, has allowed me to forward it to the listserv:> > Terry,> Did I ever tell you about the critique I did with two other profs about ten> years ago?> We were the Grad Committee of a young woman in ceramics. The two of them> hemmed and hawed for an hour about the woman's truly awful> ceramics. Everybody knew what they wanted to say, but were too gutless.> Finally I layed it out. The work was derivative and incredibly weak, and> I said so. She sat there and didn't say a word. When the critique was> over, the other two profs left and I told her I was willing to talk anytime she> wanted. No response (other than tears streaming down her cheeks), so I> got up and left the room. When I closed the door I heard this enormous> crash coming from one of her pieces being thrown against the other side> of the door. The woman dropped out of our program at the end of the> quarter and transfered to Boston College where she got a full> scholarship. Let me know if you get any examples more horrific than this> one.> > Georg> > Terry Barrett> Professor, Art Education> Ohio State University> Columbus, OH 43210> barrett.8> 614.292.4741> > >